Mindtree ties up with IISc for artificial intelligence research

Bangalore-based IT services company Mindtree has decided to collaborate with Indian Institute of Science Bangalore (IISc), one of India’s top higher education institutes, to design solutions using Artificial Intelligence or AI.

It will do so by creating an endowment, Mindtree Associate Professor Chair on Artificial Intelligence, at the institute to encourage research into the application of AI for processing both data as well as language.

“This endowment will introduce the institute’s students to solving modern business problems using AI and machine learning, leading to develop high‐impact solutions at scale,” Mindtree said.

Bangalore-based IISC is one of India’s top research institutions in the field of applied science and was established 110 years ago by Jamsedji Tata of the Tata Group.

The endowment fund is designed to attract dynamic faculty doing groundbreaking AI research with both technical scholars and domain experts, the company said.

The inaugural Mindtree Associate Professor Chair has been awarded to Professor Vijay Natarajan, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Automation.

The main topics of research to be undertaken by the faculty include topological methods for visualization; multiscale representation of large scale scientific data; geometric and topological simplification; and applications of visualization in life sciences, climate science, and material science.

Mindtree said Prof. Natarajan’s research will impact next‐generation data processing, analysis and visualization technology in the large.

Like its peers, Mindtree is engaged in a race to cut down labor costs by introducing automation and AI into industries.

Companies like TCS, Wipro and Infosys have already eliminated or prevented the emergence of tens of thousands of human jobs using automation and artificial intelligence to deploy bots that act like humans. Such bots can handle customer calls, monitor social media and even write news articles.

“Artificial Intelligence, considered the cornerstone of future technologies, needs an ideal ground for further research and development in India,” said CEO Rostow Ravanan.

“Our collaboration with IISc will help create opportunities to strengthen research in AI and provide our clients an avenue to interact with some of the best minds working in this segment.”

IISc Director Prof. Anurag Kumar said the tie-up will help provide the students with exposure to industry problems and said the partnership has ” substantially bolstered” his institutes capabilities in this sector.

“We look forward to receiving significant industry‐specific exposure through this association, in modern AI and computation technology and the problems it solves.”